Articles

Mansfield Tanick & Cohen Marks Its 20th Anniversary

It was in May, 1989, 20 years ago, when Marshall Tanick and Seymour Mansfield, already veteran lawyers, merged their two small firms to form Mansfield & Tanick. A little over a year later, they were joined by another outstanding contemporary, Earl Cohen, who merged his practice into the firm in 1991, which later incorporated, forming Mansfield Tanick & Cohen, P.A. Back then, we use to deflect comments about our being an infant law firm by noting that the combined legal experience of Seymour, Marshall and Earl exceeded 60 years. Now it's approaching 120 years, and our three fearless leaders are still going strong!

Remember 1989? We were still reeling from the ubiquitous use of fax machines, car mobile phones were beginning to emerge, and we were amazed by crude computer word processing (remember "automatic typewriters"?): A quite spectacular advance over the IBM Selectric typewriters, CPT's first machines stored typing on linear tape cassettes, which along with speedy copiers soon led to the extinction of the sacred carbon copies, along with ink stained legal staff. (Yes, Virginia: That's what "cc" means "carbon copy"!). Technology has advanced exponentially over the last two decades: We are both figuratively and literally in a new millennium of faster and faster computers, ubiquitous PDA's, Blackberries and I-Phones, instantaneous communications through e-mail, instant messaging, "OMG" - Twitter, and the like. On-line social networking, allows its advocates collectively to claim hundreds of millions in "their" Face Book, Linked In, My Space and Twitter networks; dozens of ISP applications allow for storage of unlimited data and documents on-line, real time collaboration, live on-line meetings, VOIP facilitating very cheap calling around the world. Electronic filing and searching are mandatory for the entire U.S. Federal Court system, with most state court systems close behind.

The "global economy" in 1989 was but a dreamy aspiration. In 2009, it is real, and we must be and are there for our clients. It is a flat, flat world, and we have a deep footing in that worldwide legal practice, for the last 12 years, as members of Lawyers Associated Worldwide, http://www.lawyersworldwide.com/ , with 103 law firms, 3,500 lawyers, in 53 countries.

How things have changed! But what really distinguishes MTC from the herd has largely stayed the same. The qualities we exude and teach all our lawyers and legal staff remain the same: professionalism, integrity, substantive intellect, competencies and "know how," vigorous advocacy with the focus on achieving the best results for our clients, through teams of hardworking, highly skilled and efficient lawyers and legal assistants, is at the very core of our delivery of superior legal representation to our clientele. Without those distinguishing talents and traits, our state of the art technology, would be impressive, but essentially fungible--not unlike the other top tier firms tech-wise. We also lead by example and teach our young folks that "giving back to the community" is not just an empty phase: That we expect everyone to help us "do well by their doing good."

Throughout the rest of 2009, we will be celebrating our 20th Anniversary with a number of special events, a number of retrospectives on the last two decades, articles, roundtables, and a number of special live and on-line events at which we hope to see many of our clients, professional colleagues and network contacts. (Live events BTW will require your personal presence - no Webex, twitterers, or twits, etc. will be accepted!)

The first of these events will be the 28th Law Day Testimonial Dinner, Thursday, May 7, at which our senior founding partner, Seymour Mansfield, will be honored for his lifetime dedication and achievements on behalf of legal services for the poor and disadvantaged. http://www.fundforlegalaid.org/. This dinner which typically raises over $200,000 for the Fund for the Legal Aid Society, co-founded by Seymour in 1981, is the largest annual lawyer dinner event in Minnesota, with about 700 lawyers, other professionals, business people, clientele and their guests attending. We are proud of Seymour, and hope that you will be at the May 7 Fund Dinner to applaud his dedication and steadfast support for the Legal Aid over the past 40 years. http://www.mansfieldtanick.com/CM/Announcements/Seymour-Mansfield-to-be-Honored-at-2009-Law-Day-Dinner.asp.